GAS Featured Poet: Arvilla Fee

Arvilla Fee teaches English and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling, and she never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

Neurodivergent Processing

 

people pressing,

elbows and shoulders

jockeying for position;

there are so many,

too many,

and suddenly, I can’t breathe,

the air is hot and humid

with a million moving lips,

and there are lights everywhere,

florescent overhead,

luminescent signs saying open,

saying 50% off sale,

saying buy one get one free,

and the noise rises

up, up, up to the vaulted ceilings,

creating a ringing in my ears,

so many voices and sounds,

chatter, laughter,

the squeak of tennis shoes,

the man at a kiosk

asking if I want to try a sample,

a sample of what, I don’t know;

I can’t look at him,

can’t think, can’t hear;

I’m drowning in a sensory pool,

the water closing in over my head,

the smell of fish and pizza and tacos

nearly making me ill;

I strip off my jacket

as if the release of this one layer

will somehow free my body, my mind,

but it doesn’t—so, I walk outside,

leaving the crescendo behind

and stand, eyes closed, in the muted air.

Room to Breathe

 

I broke free of skyscrapers,

            free of concrete,

            free of freeways,

            free of suits,

office-gray cubicles,

long lines at the coffee shop,

overpriced bagels and lattes;

some called it a mid-life crisis;

I called it coming to my senses,

although I have to admit

the new yellow convertible

smacked of middle-40s.

But I never felt more authentically

me—the first time I saw a sunset

free of obstructions,

free of constraints,

free to blaze like flames

in the wide Nebraska sky.

 

You Know

 

You never really know someone,

they say—but you do know;

you know when he slips out at night,

you hear the squeak of the hinges;

you know he’ll be down on 5^th street

and that there are dealers and users

congregating like brothers and sisters,

lighting up, blowing out, snorting;

you know he’ll come back high;

he’ll hug you and be sloppy-mouthed,

pupils shrunk to pinpoint black;

you know that he’ll deny everything

in the morning—make that noon-ish,

when he finally rises and breathes

unbrushed breath over your shoulder

while you are trying to eat your lunch;

you know, but don’t say anything,

that he will not look for a job today,

nor any day after because that is work,

and he doesn’t have time for that—

you know he simply lives

to keep his hands from shaking

to keep the demons off his back.

 

Meet Me by the River

 

where the bank is muddy

and the water is cool

we’ll go on pretending

our daughter’s in school

 

we’ll imagine her home

at the stroke of four

hungry for dinner

banging the door

 

we’ll talk about boys

we’ll talk about plans

she’ll practice the tuba

she plays in the band

 

I won’t watch your face

if you don’t watch mine

we’ll go on pretending

things are just fine

 

that day didn’t happen

the freak with the gun

didn’t unload a clip

and put a hole in our sun

 

we never got the call

that ended our world

we’ll head back home,

see our little girl

 

meet me by the river

let it drown our tears;

what do we have left

but empty-nest years

Runner

 

legs stretched              long, lanky—

sweat drawing circles under armpits,

a heart beats, beats, beats, beats

in rhythm to trainers slapping pavement.

She’s going somewhere;

happiness lies

just over the next hill,

or is it the one after that?

The hills all look alike,

that row of pines no different

than the last,

but she picks up speed,

forges ahead;

perhaps one day she will outrun

herself.